Dorothy Parker - Wikiquote Dorothy Parker Jump to: navigation , search You can't teach an old dogma new tricks. Dorothy Parker ( August 22 , 1893 – June 7 , 1967 ) was an American writer, poet, and critic. A fixture of 1920s literary society known for her acerbic wit and low opinion of romantic relationships, she became a member of the famous Algonquin Round Table . Contents Quotes[ edit ] There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words. Excuse my dust. Her proposed epitaph for herself, quoted in Vanity Fair (June 1925) And she had It. It, hell; she had Those. Regarding a character in Elinor Glyn's novel It; in her review, "Madame Glyn Lectures on 'It,' with Illustrations" in The New Yorker (26 November 1927) Salary is no object: I want only enough to keep body and soul apart.

New Yorker (4 February 1928) Well, Aimee Semple McPherson has written a book. And were you to call it a little peach, you would not be so much as scratching its surface. It is the story of her life, and it is called In the Service of the King, which title is perhaps a bit dangerously suggestive of a romantic novel. It may be that this autobiography is set down in sincerity, frankness and simple effort. It may be, too, that the Statue of Liberty is situated in Lake Ontario . "Our Lady of the Loudspeaker" in The New Yorker (25 February 1928) And it is that word 'hummy,' my darlings, that marks the first place in The House at Pooh Corner at which Tonstant Weader fwowed up. That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment. "But the One on the Right" in The New Yorker (1929) A lady … with all the poise of the Sphinx though but little of her mystery. Concerning a child actress in A. A.

Milne's play Give Me Yesterday; in her review of same, "Just Around Pooh Corner" in The New Yorker (14 March 1931) The House Beautiful is, for me, the play lousy. Review of "The House Beautiful" by Channing Pollock, New Yorker (21 March 1931) Drink and dance and laugh and lie, Love, the reeling midnight through, For tomorrow we shall die! (But, alas, we never do.) "The Flaw in Paganism" in Death and Taxes (1931) The ones I like … are "cheque" and "enclosed." On the most beautiful words in the English language, as quoted in The New York Herald Tribune (12 December 1932) And I'll stay away from Verlaine too; he was always chasing Rimbauds. "The Little Hours" in Here Lies (1939); this plays on the title of the popular song "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows"; Paul Verlaine was Arthur Rimbaud 's lover.

I might repeat to myself, slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound; if I can remember any of the damn things. "The Little Hours" in Here Lies (1939) I'm never going to accomplish anything; that's perfectly clear to me. I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more. "The Little Hours" in Here Lies (1939) One more drink and I'd have been under the host. As quoted in Try and Stop Me by Bennett Cerf (1944) Misattributed as quatrain beginning “I like to have a martini,” (see below). It takes me six months to do a story. I think it out and then write it sentence by sentence—no first draft. I can’t write five words but that I change seven. Interview, The Paris Review (Summer 1956) There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.

Interview, The Paris Review (Summer 1956) It's not the tragedies that kill us; it's the messes. Interview, The Paris Review (Summer 1956) All those writers who write about their own childhood! Gentle God, if I wrote about mine you wouldn't sit in the same room with me. Interview in The Paris Review, Issue #13 (Summer 1956) [On being told of Calvin Coolidge 's death] How do they know? (Coolidge was well-known for being a man of very few words.) Quoted in Writers at Work 1st Series by Malcolm Cowley (1958) There is no such hour on the present clock as 6:30, New York time. Yet, as only New Yorkers know, if you can get through the twilight, you'll live through the night. "New York at 6:30 P.M.", Esquire (November 1964) You can't teach an old dogma new tricks. Attributed to Parker after her death, by Robert E. Drennan The Algonquin Wits (1968), p. 124.

However the same quip appears anonymously fifteen years earlier, in the trade journal Sales Management (Chicago: Dartnell Corp., 1918-75), vol. 70 (Survey of Buying Power, 1953), p. 80: "Marxism never changes. You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks." Too fucking busy, and vice versa. Response to an editor pressuring her for overdue work, as quoted in The Unimportance of Being Oscar (1968) by Oscar Levant , p. 89 It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard. On her abortion, as quoted in You Might as well Live by John Keats (1970) You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think. Parker's answer when asked to use the word horticulture during a game of Can-You-Give-Me-A-Sentence?, as quoted in You Might as well Live by John Keats (1970). What fresh hell can this be?

"If the doorbell rang in her apartment, she would say, 'What fresh hell can this be?' — and it wasn't funny; she meant it." You might as well live: the life and times of Dorothy Parker, John Keats (Simon Schuster, 1970, p124). Often quoted as "What fresh hell is this?" as in the title of the 1987 biography by Marion Meade, "Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?". Enough Rope (1926)[ edit ] Ballads of a Great Weariness Scratch a lover, and find a foe. Observation If I didn't care for fun and such, I'd probably amount to much. But I shall stay the way I am, Because I do not give a damn. First printed in New York World, (16 August 1925) Comment May view John Knox in Paradise. First printed in Life, 24 February 1927 p. 5 A Pig's-Eye View of Literature: Oscar Wilde If with the literate I am Impelled to try an epigram, I never seek to take the credit; We all assume that Oscar said it.

First printed in Life, (2 June 1927) p. 13 Fair Weather They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm. First printed in New York World, (20 January 1928) p. 13 Thoughts for a Sunshiny Morning It costs me never a stab nor squirm To tread by chance upon a worm. "Aha, my little dear," I say, "Your clan will pay me back some day." First printed in New Yorker, (9 April 1927) p. 31 Our Mrs Parker (1934)[ edit ] Quotes of Parker from Alexander Woollcott 's biographical essay "Our Mrs Parker" in While Rome Burns (1934) which is the original published source for some of the most famous things she said at the Algonquin Round Table. That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can't say No in any of them. A similar line was later used by Ira Gershwin in " The Saga of Jenny " in Lady in the Dark (1942): "In 27 languages she couldn't say no." And there was that wholesale libel on a Yale prom.

If all the girls attending it were laid end to end, Mrs Parker said, she wouldn't be at all surprised. Brevity is the soul of lingerie. Caption written for Vogue 1916 Katharine Hepburn delivered a striking performance that ran the gamut of emotions, from A to B. Woollcott writes in While Rome Burns that Parker had "recently...achieved an equal compression in reporting on The Lake, Miss Hepburn, it seems, had run the whole gamut from A to B." These words do not appear in Dorothy Parker's 1934 printed review of The Lake, but were elsewhere described as a spoken remark. "'We might as well go back,' said Dorothy Parker during an intermission of The Lake in 1934, 'and watch Katharine Hepburn run the gamut of emotions from A to B.'" "Hepburn From A to B : Close-up of a Stage Struck Youngster" by Alan Jackson, in Cinema Arts Vol. 1 No.

2, (July 1937) Not Much Fun: The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker (1996)[ edit ] Dotty had They exude an atmosphere of The New Republic—a sort of Crolier -than-thou air. p. 36 There is one thing about Fiddlers Three, though, that held my attention all through the evening: Try as I might I could only discern two fiddlers. p. 42 Chapter 2: 1919[ edit ] To quote the only line of Gertrude Stein’s which I have ever been able to understand, “It is wonderful how I am not interested.” p. 64 You know how a play in dialect is. At the first act, you think, “How quaint!”; at the second act, you wish they would either stop using dialect or keep quiet; and at the third act, you wish you hadn’t come. And Tillie, may I mention in passing, has four acts. p.

64 If the English version is in what, in our youth, we used to speak of affectionately as dear old iambic pentameter, the actors mercifully abstain from reciting it that way; they speak their lines as good, hardy prose. p. 76 The musical comedies of the month are She’s a Good Fellow and The Lady in Red, both of which owe their book and lyrics to Anne Caldwell —evidently a native of New York, judged by the casualness with which she rhymes “teacher” and “reach a.” p. 82 And you remember, Rabbi Wise has declared, in a heated moment, that our plays seem to be written for the hosiery buyers. If Dr. Wise had only witnessed our new summer reviews, he doubtless would have amended his statement to read “by the hosiery buyers.” p.89 This use of soldiers to make a play popular seems too much like taking an unfair advantage of the uniform—hitting below the Sam Browne belt, as it were. p.

93 In short, there is everything about this season’s entertainment to make the Hippodrome what it always is—a Temple of the Arts to all those who hang pennants on their automobiles, use “Shake hands with my friend” as a formula for introduction, and sprinkle powdered sugar on their sliced tomatoes. p. 106 Chapter 3: 1920[ edit ] The play holds the season’s record, thus far, with a run of four evening performances and one matinée. By an odd coincidence, it ran just five performances too many. p. 121 Writing a book for the Follies seems to be about as profitable an occupation as furnishing flannel petticoats for the showgirls. p. 151 The management’s method of procedure is evidently to hire some well-known man to write the book, and then, as soon as it is written, to give it away to some deserving family, and go out and engage an assortment of specialty acts. p. 151 Van and Schenck put their songs over so skillfully that it isn’t until their act is all done that you realize what extremely indifferent songs they are.

Now, when John Steel is singing, on the other hand, you are never fooled for a moment. p.153 Mr. Hodge plays with his accustomed ease, even carrying the thing so far as to repeat many of his lines with his eyes shut; and in a pretty spirit of reciprocity, many members of the audience sit through the play with their eyes shut. p. 175 Chapter 4: 1921[ edit ] Of course, there are many things to be said for the afternoon performance, chief among them being that it cuts in so generously on one’s work. p. 201 Naturally, you know how you would feel on setting out to see a performance of Aucassin and Nicolette done by a company of little ones; you would strive to hurl yourself beneath the wheels of a friendly truck, on your way to the theatre. p. 233 Bringing in a wounded soldier is getting to be rather like waving an American flag at the end of an act. One cannot harbor feelings of unmixed admiration for the playwright who will hide behind either of them. p.

250 Chapter 5: 1922[ edit ] So seeing that there is nothing further to say, I shall go right on talking about The Circle , thus proving that I am a born reviewer of plays. p. 256 Rockliffe Fellowes gives a likable performance of the secondary crook’s rôle, and there are some decidedly agreeable-looking doughnuts consumed in the first act. And that is about all one can say for Pot Luck. p. 260 If you arrive late, you won’t know what anything is about, and if you are there all the way from the beginning, you won’t care. p. 277 There is one thing that appreciably eases the strain for the plays that arrive at this time of year, and that is that practically nothing is expected of them. p. 306 The murdered man meets his death in an intriguing and novel manner, which the management asks its customers, as a personal favor, not to reveal to possible future audiences. It remains a secret, chummily shared by those that have seen the play and the four or five million who read it in its original form as a Saturday Evening Post story a year or so ago. p.

320 It is advertised as “a seagoin’ comedy,” and anytime they go leaving off the final g that way, you know what to expect. p. 324 Chapter 6: 1923[ edit ] Two things made The Dice of the Gods, another play about drugs, seem much better than it had any real right to seem. One was that Morphia had come first, and once you had seen Morphia, nothing seemd so very terrible to you. p. 375 The cure for boredom is curiosity . There is no cure for curiosity. Widely attributed to Dorothy Parker and to Ellen Parr, but the origin is unknown. “Age Before Beauty.” “Pearls Before Swine.” Widely attributed to Dorothy Parker and Clare Boothe Luce. “Age before beauty” said Luce while yielding the way. “And pearls before swine,” replied Parker while gliding through the doorway. [1] “ Martini Madness: Dorothy Parker didn’t write the famous quatrain about martinis that’s always attributed to her. ”, Troy Patterson, Slate , April 8, 2013 This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.

Quoted in The Algonquin Wits (1968) edited by Robert E. Drennan, and The Dispatch (October 1962). As noted at Snopes, Drennan's source seems to be a Parker review which does not seem to contain this quote. If Parker wrote this statement anywhere the primary source seems to have gone missing. The earliest attribution of this quote was published in the February 1960 Readers' Digest, and credited to a book review by Sid Ziff in the Los Angeles Mirror-News, which existed from 1955 to 1960. This is a little odd, considering that Sid Ziff was a sports columnist; the reference in Readers' Digest has been confirmed but the quote from the Mirror-News has not - see Quote Investigator for details. Quotes about Parker[ edit ] Abortion in Literature: Short Stories by Dorothy Parker | Abortion Gang Abortion in Literature: Short Stories by Dorothy Parker 6 Oct Every so often, abortion bubbles to the pop-cultural surface of American society. When it does, it feels a bit like tossing a quarter and watching it whirl in the air for a second: Hold your breath. It’s either heads or tails.

Both outcomes occasion critical analysis on the interweb, of course. We hung our heads in 2007 when Juno dodged the issue in favor of adoption, abortion’s popular and well-behaved sister. We try to unpack the woefully-scripted pitfalls of The Secret Life of the American Teenager. We look for glimmers of pro-choice hope in True Blood’s bizarre pregnancy storyline, during which an anti-choice woman attempts to abort via Wiccan ritual and discovers that evil fetuses aren’t so easily expelled. And we cheer triumphantly when television series like Six Feet Under, Mad Men, and Friday Night Lights portray abortion realistically and unapologetically. The hullaballoo over TV abortion always strikes me as darkly ironic. After all, one-third of women in the United States will have had an abortion by age 45…and no one talks about it. In real life, abortion is prevalent and hushed. In the world of pop culture, it’s rare and deafening. Maybe it’s this double-edged view of contemporary portrayals of abortion that draws me to Dorothy Parker and her endearingly irreverent prose from another time.

I studied English literature in college, and I looked for abortion in the stories I read for class just as I looked for abortion in the stories I watched on television. Even in works of fiction, abortion storylines aren’t especially common. Then I met Dorothy, a woman who had the ovaries to say this about her abortion(s) long before our legal institutions had her back: “It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard.” Admittedly, this quote is self-deprecating and doesn’t make a whole lot of sense biologically. As a poet, writer, and serial wisecracker, Dorothy Parker was clearly more concerned with cheekily transforming proverbs than she was with scientific accuracy. After all, Parker was one of the founding members of the famed Algonquin Round Table, a lunch-hour ritual of select New York literati from 1919 to 1927. But she spoke candidly about abortion during an era when the procedure was illegal and highly taboo. For this, I love her. Here’s a mini-biography adapted from the first few pages of Dorothy Parker: Complete Stories to get you started: Parker was born in New Jersey in the summer of 1893.

When she was 23, she landed an editorial position at Vogue, and she later wrote for Vanity Fair as a theatre critic. She began writing short stories for The New Yorker in 1925 and would continue to do so periodically until 1957. She was married, divorced, and remarried to a man named Alan Campbell until his death in 1963. Along the way, she published several collections of her work including Enough Rope in 1926, Sunset Gun in 1928, Laments for the Living in 1930, and Death and Taxes in 1931. Specifically, I had two short stories from a volume I obtained during college in mind when I started writing this post. The first, entitled “Mr. Durant,” reads from the perspective of a middle-class man in a managerial position at a rubber factory. The speaker in the second, “Lady with a Lamp,” is the frenemy of a woman who recently terminated a pregnancy. There’s nothing warm and fuzzy about Parker’s commentary on abortion. These stories will stir all of your emotions, from rage to sympathy, sadness, and amusement.

What’s perhaps most infuriatingly truthful about these two pieces is their representation of women who abort as invisible and obscured by sexism and stigma. “Mr. Durant” and “Lady with a Lamp” revolve around the issue of abortion, but Parker never focalizes (apologies for the English-major jargon) the women who abort. Instead, their experiences with abortion are refracted through the opinions, needs, and judgments of Parker’s central characters. Mr. Durant, for instance, is a married man with two children who impregnates Rose, his stenographer. He loathes Rose for becoming pregnant. The reader, in turn, loathes Mr. Durant, his entitlement, and his rampant misogyny. In “Lady with a Lamp,” the nameless female speaker underhandedly prods her friend, Mona, with questions about the nature of Mona’s “illness.” “Lady with a Lamp” is, quite literally, a one-sided conversation. Parker omits Mona’s responses from the exchange entirely, rendering Mona voiceless in the face of her frenemy’s schadenfreude and self-righteousness.

When I re-read these two stories recently, I found myself reflecting on the silence that shrouds women’s experiences with abortion and, conversely, the incessant roar that is the political debate over women’s bodies. Sometimes, it seems as though everyone has something to say about abortion except the people who abort. Remarkably, Dorothy Parker’s stories about abortion convey this truth across generations of change and progress. Perhaps her stories remind us of how far we’ve yet to go. Dorothy Parker Quotes - Quotes of Dorothy Parker Poem Hunter Dorothy Parker Quotes - Quotes of Dorothy Parker Poem Hunter Search in the quotations of Dorothy Parker : Page : 3 ''That woman speaks eighteen languages and can't say No in any of them.'' Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), U.S. humorous writer. Quoted in While Rome Burns, "Our Mrs. Parker," Alexander Woollcott (1934). Referring to a departing guest. ''It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard.'' Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), U.S. humorous writer. quoted in You Might As Well Live, pt.

2, ch.3, John Keats (1970). On her abortion. ''Wit has truth in it ... wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.'' Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), U.S. author and humorist. As quoted in The Late Mrs. Dorothy Parker, ch. 9, by Leslie Frewin (1986). Parker was reputed to be the wittiest woman of her time. ''The affair between Margot Asquith and Margot Asquith will live as one of the prettiest love stories in all literature.'' Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), U.S. author and humorist. As quoted in The Late Mrs. Dorothy Parker, ch. 28, by Leslie Frewin (1986). In a review, probably written in the early 1920s, of the autobiography of Margot Asquith (1864-1945). ''The two most beautiful words in the English language are "check enclosed."'' Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), U.S. author and humorist.

As quoted in The Late Mrs. Dorothy Parker, ch. 17, by Leslie Frewin (1986). Said in the 1920s; Parker, trying to earn her living as a writer, was referring to the financial insecurity of the profession. ''Money is only congealed snow.'' Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), U.S. author and humorist. As quoted in The Late Mrs. Dorothy Parker, ch. 25, by Leslie Frewin (1986). A popular writer who had earned considerable sums of money, Parker spent carelessly and always seemed to be in need. ''Maybe it is only I, but conditions are such these days, that if you use studiously correct grammar, people suspect you of homosexual tendencies.'' Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), U.S. author and humorist. As quoted in The Late Mrs. Dorothy Parker, ch. 11, by Leslie Frewin (1986). Parker was a grammatically fastidious writer of fiction, poetry, essays, and reviews. She said this ca. 1925.

''I was the toast of two continents: Greenland and Australia.'' Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), U.S. author and humorist. As quoted in You Might as Well Live, part 1, ch. 6, by John Keats (1970). Parker was recalling her 1920s reputation as a rather silly "smartcracker." ''Scratch a lover, and find a foe.'' Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), U.S. humorous writer. Ballade of a Great Weariness, Enough Rope (1926). ''... if this world were anything near what it should be there would be no more need of a Book Week than there would be a of a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.'' Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), U.S. author and humorist. Constant Reader, column dated February 11, 1928 (1970).

Page : Dorothy Parker: Poet, Poetry, Wit, Picture, Bio, Spoonerisms, Epigrams The HyperTexts Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) was an American poet, writer, critic and satirist who is best known for her wit, wisecracks, epigrams, quotes, short pithy poems and spoonerisms. But she also wrote more serious poems reminiscent of those of Edna St. Vincent Millay and Sarah Teasdale. Parker won acclaim for her literary contributions to The New Yorker and for her Hollywood screenwriting on A Star is Born and The Little Foxes, for which she earned two Academy Award nominations. Parker was sometimes dismissive of her own talents and deplored her reputation as a "wisecracker," but today she has achieved a stature comparable to that of famous wits like Oscar Wilde and Ogden Nash. According to her New York Times obituary, Parker was a "sardonic humorist" who "sparkled with a word or phrase, for she honed her humor to its most economical size.

Her rapier wit, much of it spontaneous, gained its early renown from her membership in the Algonquin Round Table, an informal luncheon group at the Algonquin Hotel in the nineteen-twenties, where some of the city's most sedulous framers of bon mots gathered." One of Parker's most famous comments was made when she was informed that former president Calvin Coolidge had died; she asked, "How could they tell?" She supported many liberal causes and bequeathed her estate to the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Foundation. Spoonerisms I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy. You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think. (After being asked to use the word "horticulture" during a game of Can-You-Give-Me-A-Sentence.) Sex Hex Brevity is the soul of lingerie. All I need is room enough to lay a hat, and a few friends. (About the smallish size of her apartment.) If all the girls who attended Yale were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised. Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common.

Ducking for apples—change one letter and it's the story of my life. I’ve been too fucking busy, or vice versa. (Her response when her editor asked for more stories during her honeymoon.) When told that a certain woman wouldn't hurt a fly, Parker retorted, "Not if it was buttoned up." I require only three things in a man. He must be handsome, ruthless and stupid. It serves me right for keeping all my eggs in one bastard. (Leaving a hospital after an abortion.) Funny Money I’ve never been a millionaire but I just know I’d be darling at it. Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves. The two most beautiful words in the English language are ‘cheque enclosed.’ If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to. Professional Discourtesy Of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, Parker said: "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force." She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B. (Speaking of Katharine Hepburn.) Epigrams You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks.

A little bad taste is like a nice dash of paprika. I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true! That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment. Look at him, a rhinestone in the rough! Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone. The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue. Women and elephants never forget. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words. (More of Dorothy Parker's epigrams appear later on this page.) I wish I could drink like a lady I wish I could drink like a lady; I can take one or two at the most: Three and I'm under the table, Four and I'm under the host. Unfortunate Coincidence By the time you swear you're his, Shivering and sighing, And he vows his passion is Infinite, undying― Lady, make a note of this: One of you is lying. Rï¿½sumï¿½ You might as well live.

Thought for a Sunshiny Morning It costs me never a stab nor squirm To tread by chance upon a worm. "Aha, my little dear," I say, "Your clan will pay me back one day." Coda There's little in taking or giving, There's little in water or wine; This living, this living, this living Was never a project of mine. Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is The gain of the one at the top, For art is a form of catharsis, And love is a permanent flop, And work is the province of cattle, And rest's for a clam in a shell, So I'm thinking of throwing the battle― Would you kindly direct me to hell? Little Words When you are gone, there is nor bloom nor leaf, Nor singing sea at night, nor silver birds; And I can only stare, and shape my grief In little words. I cannot conjure loveliness, to drown The bitter woe that racks my cords apart. The weary pen that sets my sorrow down Feeds at my heart. There is no mercy in the shifting year, No beauty wraps me tenderly about. I turn to little words―so you, my dear, Can spell them out.

I think, no matter where you stray, That I shall go with you a way. Though you may wander sweeter lands, You will not soon forget my hands, Nor yet the way I held my head, Nor all the tremulous things I said. You still will see me, small and white And smiling, in the secret night, And feel my arms about you when The day comes fluttering back again. I think, no matter where you be, You'll hold me in your memory And keep my image, there without me, By telling later loves about me. Bric-a-Brac Little things that no one needs― Little things to joke about― Little landscapes, done in beads. Little morals, woven out, Little wreaths of gilded grass, Little brigs of whittled oak Bottled painfully in glass; These are made by lonely folk. Lonely folk have lines of days Long and faltering and thin; Therefore—little wax bouquets, Prayers cut upon a pin, Little maps of pinkish lands, Little charts of curly seas, Little plats of linen strands, Little verses, such as these.

Condolence They hurried here, as soon as you had died, Their faces damp with haste and sympathy, And pressed my hand in theirs, and smoothed my knee, And clicked their tongues, and watched me, mournful-eyed. Gently they told me of that Other Side― How, even then, you waited there for me, And what ecstatic meeting ours would be. Moved by the lovely tale, they broke, and cried. And when I smiled, they told me I was brave, And they rejoiced that I was comforted, And left to tell of all the help they gave. But I had smiled to think how you, the dead, So curiously preoccupied and grave, Would laugh, could you have heard the things they said. Theory Into love and out again, Thus I went, and thus I go. Spare your voice, and hold your pen― Well and bitterly I know All the songs were ever sung, All the words were ever said; Could it be, when I was young, Some one dropped me on my head? A Very Short Song Once, when I was young and true, Someone left me sad― Broke my brittle heart in two; And that is very bad.

Love is for unlucky folk, Love is but a curse. Once there was a heart I broke; And that, I think, is worse. More Epigrams They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm. The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. The best way to keep children home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant―and let the air out of the tires. Money cannot buy health, but I’d settle for a diamond-studded wheelchair. Four be the things I’d have been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles and doubt. I might repeat to myself slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound—if I can remember any of the damn things. I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do any thing. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more. Miscellaneous Short Poems If, with the literate, I am Impelled to try an epigram, I never seek to take the credit; We all assume that Oscar said it.

If wild my breast and sore my pride, I bask in dreams of suicide, If cool my heart and high my head I think "How lucky are the dead." Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, A medley of extemporanea; And love is a thing that can never go wrong; And I am Marie of Romania. Now I know the things I know, and I do the things I do; and if you do not like me so, to hell, my love, with you! My land is bare of chattering folk; the clouds are low along the ridges, and sweet's the air with curly smoke from all my burning bridges. Authors and actors and artists and such Never know nothing, and never know much. Incurable And if my heart be scarred and burned, The safer, I, for all I learned; The calmer, I, to see it true That ways of love are never new— The love that sets you daft and dazed Is every love that ever blazed; The happier, I, to fathom this: A kiss is every other kiss.

The reckless vow, the lovely name, When Helen walked, were spoke the same; The weighted breast, the grinding woe, When Phaon fled, were ever so. Oh, it is sure as it is sad That any lad is every lad, And what's a girl, to dare implore Her dear be hers forevermore? Though he be tried and he be bold, And swearing death should he be cold, He'll run the path the others went.... But you, my sweet, are different. A Fairly Sad Tale I think that I shall never know Why I am thus, and I am so. Around me, other girls inspire In men the rush and roar of fire, The sweet transparency of glass, The tenderness of April grass, The durability of granite; But me—I don't know how to plan it. The lads I've met in Cupid's deadlock Were—shall we say?—born out of wedlock. They broke my heart, they stilled my song, And said they had to run along, Explaining, so to sop my tears, First came their parents or careers. But ever does experience Deny me wisdom, calm, and sense!

Though she's a fool who seeks to capture The twenty-first fine, careless rapture, I must go on, till ends my rope, Who from my birth was cursed with hope. A heart in half is chaste, archaic; But mine resembles a mosaic— The thing's become ridiculous! Why am I so? Why am I thus? A Portrait Because my love is quick to come and go— A little here, and then a little there— What use are any words of mine to swear My heart is stubborn, and my spirit slow Of weathering the drip and drive of woe? What is my oath, when you have but to bare My little, easy loves; and I can dare Only to shrug, and answer, "They are so"? You do not know how heavy a heart it is That hangs about my neck—a clumsy stone Cut with a birth, a death, a bridal-day. Each time I love, I find it still my own, Who take it, now to that lad, now to this, Seeking to give the wretched thing away. But Not Forgotten I think, no matter where you stray, That I shall go with you a way.

Though you may wander sweeter lands, You will not soon forget my hands, Nor yet the way I held my head, Nor all the tremulous things I said. You still will see me, small and white And smiling, in the secret night, And feel my arms about you when The day comes fluttering back again. I think, no matter where you be, You'll hold me in your memory And keep my image, there without me, By telling later loves about me. Hearthside Half across the world from me Lie the lands I'll never see— I, whose longing lives and dies Where a ship has sailed away; I, that never close my eyes But to look upon Cathay. Things I may not know nor tell Wait, where older waters swell; Ways that flowered at Sappho's tread, Winds that sighed in Homer's strings, Vibrant with the singing dead, Golden with the dust of wings. Under deeper skies than mine, Quiet valleys dip and shine. Where their tender grasses heal Ancient scars of trench and tomb I shall never walk: nor kneel Where the bones of poets bloom.

If I seek a lovelier part, Where I travel goes my heart; Where I stray my thought must go; With me wanders my desire. Best to sit and watch the snow, Turn the lock, and poke the fire. The Picture Gallery My life is like a picture gallery, With narrow aisles wherein the spectators may walk. The pictures themselves are hung to the best advantage; So that the good ones draw immediate attention. Now and then, one is so cleverly hung, That, though it seems unobtrusive, It catches the most flattering light. Even the daubs are shown so skillfully That the shadows soften them into beauty.... My life is like a picture gallery, With a few pictures turned discreetly to the wall. Celebrate Valentine's Day, Dorothy Parker Style Celebrate Valentine's Day, Dorothy Parker Style By Michele Gouveia "By the time you swear you're his, Shivering and sighing. And he vows his passion is, Infinite, undying. Lady make note of this — One of you is lying." So wrote Dorothy Parker, one of the greatest American wits of the 20th century. A critic, poet, and writer of short stories and screenplays, Mrs.

Parker, as she was known, was a member of the legendary Algonquin Round Table, a group of writers and artists who would gather daily for lunch and gossip at the Algonquin Hotel in New York during the 1920s. 10 Reasons Why it Sucks to Have Your Birthday on... The woman who once said, "The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue," became famous for her keen observations and acerbic one-liners. She coined the phrase "Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses" and noted that "If you wear a short enough skirt, the party will come to you."Once when Mrs. Parker was living at the Algonquin the hotel's manager, Frank Case, called and asked her if she had a gentleman in her room. She responded, "Just a minute. I'll ask him." Much of Mrs. Parker's work deals with the perils of falling in love, which she wrote candidly about including her own numerous heartbreaks ("It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard.").

With Valentine's Day fast approaching, it's hard not to think what caustic comments she might have had about a holiday devoted to love and whose symbol is a chubby angel with a bow and arrow. So this February 14th, instead of opening another boring box of chocolates, why not celebrate the day in the spirit of Mrs. Parker by mixing up a cocktail (or two). Under the Table: A Dorothy Parker Cocktail Guide by Kevin C. Fitzpatrick makes it easy with recipes for cocktails that Mrs. Parker and her friends would have enjoyed along with some modern day concoctions. You could try a vintage Cablegram, a Horse's Neck (don't worry; the main ingredient is bourbon), the recently created Acerbic Dorothy Parker (made, of course, with Dorothy Parker American Gin), or go all out with a Love Cocktail. Comprised of sloe gin, egg white, lemon juice, and raspberry syrup, the book's author promises that when mixed properly the result is a cocktail the color of blood. How holiday appropriate. Just be sure to keep in mind what Mrs. Parker reportedly said, "I like to have a martini, two at the most.

After three I'm under the table, after four I'm under my host." Love Cocktail 1 1/2 ounces sloe gin 1 egg white Miss Parker's Pain: the Romantic Heart of Dorothy Parker Miss Parker's Pain: the Romantic Heart of Dorothy Parker Updated on February 19, 2013 A Brilliant Career One time editor of Vanity Fair, Frank Crowinshield once said of Dorothy Parker "she had the quickest tongue imaginable, and I need not say the keenest sense of mockery". Yet Parker's clever, cynical approach obscured a deep-seated romanticism that is evident in much of her work; particularly her poetry about relationships, which formed a large part of her creative output. It seems probable that the incessant, cynical quiping was a kind of protection from the disappointments and disillusionments of her life experience. As the saying goes...'scratch a cynic and you'll find a disappointed idealist beneath'. Parker was forthright, nor was she frightened of confrontation and indeed her candour cost her her job at Vanity Fair in 1920, as a result of her barbed, witty pieces, which sometimes offended those those who were on the receiving end.

Always in search of a passionate high, her private life was a heady soup of romantic highs and lows; she was emotionally adventurous and had, on more than one occasion, to pay the price for venturing into dangerous waters. Irrespective of what was happening in her life, Parker always pressed on with her writing - eloquent, elegant compositions, spiced with a knowing cynicism that revealed her sharp insights into the human condition. Between 1927 and 1933 wrote book reviews for The New Yorker and from 1957 to 1962, for Esquire. Her first collection of poems, Enough Rope, was published in 1926 and was a bestseller. This was followed by Sunset Guns (1928) and Death and Taxes (1931), which were included in Collected Poems: Not So Deep As a Well (1936). In additon, she wrote for films,co- founded the Screenwriter's Guild and wrote two short story collections - After Such Pleasures (1932) and Here Lies (1939) .

The Dorothy Parker Society The Algonquin The audacious poet was something of a legend in the New York literary scene and she fraternized with many of the luminaries of the day. At the Algonquin Club she was absorbed into a group of clever wits known variously as "The Round Table" and "The Vicious Circle", although originally the group had referrred to themselves as "The Board" and their long, loquacious lunches as "Board Meetings." The group included literary players like humourist Robert Benchley, critic Alexander Woollcott, the founder and editor of The New Yorker; Harold Ross, columnists Franklin Pierce Adams and Heywood Broun, comedian Harpo Marx and playwrights George S. Kaufman, Marc Connelly, novelist Edna Ferber, and Robert Sherwood. Occasionally, visiting writer's and others would be permitted entry to the inner sanctum, such as notorious wit and British playwright Noel Coward. When they weren't playing charades, cribbage and poker, the Algonquin crowd were engaging in witticisms, practical jokes, smart remarks, bitchiness and collaborative creative exchanges.

It was a living hub of artistic egos at play and Dorothy Parker was a luminous player. "Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone."~ Dorothy parker Although not pretty in the conventional sense, Dorothy Parker was sophisticated, stylish in her own unique way and posessed the sort of sex-appeal that comes from a brightly animated spirit. Experience Some men break your heart in two, Some men fawn and flatter, Some men never look at you; And that clears up the matter. The Vicious Circle by Al Hirsrchfield Satrical Quips Parker's jaunty, sardonic style was often superficially matter of fact, yet the deeper truths are always evident. The reader smiles, but it's a knowing smile because we recognise the warts on the familiar: ~She runs the gamut of emotion, from A to B.~ ~If all the girls who attended Yale Prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be at all surprised.~ ~That woman speaks eighteen languages and can't say no in any of them.~ ~I like to have a martini. Two at the very most....At three I'm under the table.

At four I'm under the host.~ ~Tell him I'm too f*cking busy..or tell him I' m too busy f*cking~ ~if you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.~ ~The two most beautiful words in the English language are "cheque enclosed".~ ~You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.~ Dorothy Parker: The Dark Heart of Love Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, A medley of extemporanea; And love is a thing that can never go wrong; And I am Marie of Rumania. Parker's cynicism about love is evident in the poem above and indeed, long term happiness in love eluded her. One of her lovers was literary star, F Scott Fitzgerald, - while he was still married, though the affair was brief and according to columnist Sheila Graham, who herself was involved with Fitzgerald, the affair was motivated "by compassion on her part and despair on his". It was not Parker's only extra-marital relationships and in between affairs she married twice.

"Serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard." At twenty-six, she married a man called Edwin Pond Parker II, In 1917 and by the end of 1919, they were divorced. Pond Parker was a stockbroker and sadly, one with a troubled, damaged personality. Wounded in World War I, he was an alcoholic, and as a result of his injuries, he became addicted to morphine during the war. Parker once joked that she had only married him to shake off her Jewish maiden name of Rothschild and avoid the anti-semitism that was pervasive at the time. "His voice was as intimate as the rustle of sheets." Dorothy Parker didn't marry again until 1930, this time to actor and aspiring screenwriter, Alan Campbell, a man twelve years her junior. The pair moved to Hollywood where she took up a new career in screenwriting. Campbell too, ultimately proved to be a delicate soul and died in 1963 of a barbituate overdose.

The marriage had lasted seventeen years until they divorced in 1947 but it had been a volatile match for much of that time - exacerbated by Parker's increasing alcohol dependence and Campbell's affair with a married woman. Nethertheless, it proved to be her most enduring relationship and they remarried in 1950 but while they remained good friends, they lived apart second time around. The poem below, A Dream Lies Dead, reeks of dissillusionment yet the reader can sense the fragile idealism beneath: A dream lies dead here. May you softly go Before this place, and turn away your eyes, Nor seek to know the look of that which dies Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe, But, for a little, let your step be slow. And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wise With words of hope and Spring and tenderer skies. A dream lies dead; and this all mourners know: Whenever one drifted petal leaves the tree- Though white of bloom as it had been before And proudly waitful of fecundity- One little loveliness can be no more; And so must Beauty bow her imperfect head Because a dream has joined the wistful dead!

Might as Well Live; Dorothy Parker's Suicidal Tendencies Throughout the 1920s Parker succumbed to several extra-marital affairs, drank to excess and attempted suicide three times. Although professionally she was a raging success and never lost her motivation to write, her private passions were a source of profound disatisfaction, despair and disappointment. However, at least through her poetry, her attitude to the tragic imperfections of life was philosophical: Resume Gas smell awful; You might as well live Such dark tendencies may have stemmed partly from what was by her own account, an unhappy childhood. Her mother died when she was five, she reputedly detested her step-mother and relations wth her father, Jacob Henry Rothschild, whom she accused of physically abusive, weren't much better. Rothschild died when she was twenty, In politics, she was characteristically outspoken and was an early supporter of civil liberties and civil rights a well as a vocal critic of Fascism and Nazism. During the McMarthy era Parker was blacklisted, having declared herself a communist, though she was never a member of the Communist party.

Her satirical wit was an effective weapon but she used it wisely, against pretence, hypocrisy and oppression and never against the oppressed. Dorothy Parker did live and in the end died of natural causes at the age of 73, alone in her home in 1967 - a residential New York hotel. Childless, she left her estate to Martin Luther King, Jr , a man she had never met. Through all the vicissitudes of personal hurt, her social conscience never left her. In worldy matters, as in love, she was at heart a romantic idealist. More People to Read About

Question: On her abortion, which American writer once said "It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard"?
Answer: DOROTHY PARKER